[Spaceships 2] Maintenance on Cheap Ships

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Sure, but my point is, you can't have it take extra time to do maintenance unless you buy extra robots, because its time is already consumed by its regular tasks.

The comparison here was to an hourly employee that you would have to pay overtime for any extra man-hours.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

(Of course, if this is as advantageous as it sounds, you've got to question why you're the only one with a Jump-2 drive...)

In most versions of Traveller, the cheapest way to move freight over long distances (assuming you ignore the trade rules and just design ships to do the job efficiently) is either J2 or J3, depending on TL, rule set, distance, and route details (for an obvious case, two worlds separated by 3 parsecs will always favor J3, two worlds separated by 4 with a midpoint 2 from either one will always favor J2).

[JMason]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

Oh, something else to note regarding Traveller Jump Drives, keep in mind that Jump-2 doesn't just mean that a ship can travel twice as far in a single jump, it also means that the ship can jump some starless gulfs that Jump-1 ships can't without making some modifications to the ship. To cross a 2 parsec gulf a Jump-1 ship would either need to mount extra Fuel Tanks, have some collapsible fuel tanks in the Cargo Hold (I don't know if these appear in the ISW book, they don't appear in Spaceships, but they do appear in previous versions of GURPS Traveller), or use drop tanks (a concept which showed up in some Traveller supplements, but I don't think were ever used in GURPS Traveller). And even with those modifications, the Jump-1 ship still takes two jumps and two weeks to cross the gulf that the Jump-2 ship can do in one jump and one week.

And a Jump-2 ship can, with some modifications, cross a 4 parsec gulf.

I've been working out a few ideas with my group. One is that b/c the Imperium sticks to the trade routes, when Terrans short cut a route (jumping directly across gulfs where normally the route takes a more round-about way), they can still get paid for the the number of parsecs in the "long way" and even get a bonus for taking less time.

We're also looking at having a monthly maintenance roll (made by the Chief Engineer PC) that will modify the monthly cost of maintenance. Basically how well the standard "fixes" go, determine what breaks down or doesn't that month. I'm thinking MoS x 10% (which puts the crit range at 100%), but might shift this down some.

[fredtheobviouspseudonym]

Originally Posted by talonthehand

Quote:
Originally Posted by Men At Arms
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. . . . . Good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socio-economic unfairness.
.

Works for can openers, too.

I used to always buy the cheapo "widget aisle of the supermarket" can openers that cost c. $2.00 but came apart in 2, 2 1/2 years or so.

One time I was in a kitchen store, had just gotten paid so I felt flush, & bought a German-made $8.00 can opener. Boy, did I feel dumb when I got it home. Waste of money.

That was 23 years ago & I'm still using that "dumb purchase." Still works fine. So with the cost of occasional washing I'm still ahead about $12 on that can opener, not counting the hassle of buying a new one every 2.5 years.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Which, if people really are paying freight based on the Jump-1 assumption, may let you cut literal corners and get paid for more distance than you actually travel. In addition to covering the ground you do cover faster.

Keep in mind that it's not necessarily that "people" are paying based on Jump-1, it's that the rules in Spaceships 2 are based around FTL-1. Unfortunately, while based on FTL-1 they don't even give suggestions, let alone rules, for how much FTL-2 or higher should affect shipping rates (and obviously they should, since FTL-2 or higher both costs more to have on a ship and gets the freight there faster).
But I also get what you're saying in regards to Traveller. A particular Shipping route may be 8 jumps away via FTL-1 but one jump away via FTL-2, which could allow ingenious PCs to get paid for the equivalent of 8 jumps worth of shipping on that particular run.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

(Of course, if this is as advantageous as it sounds, you've got to question why you're the only one with a Jump-2 drive...)

You won't be. The closest analog today is the difference between bulk freight rates, standard mail, airmail, and overnight airmail. You can mail packages, and for maybe double the price you can airmail them. And for a premium you can overnight them. But if you have 30 pallets of stuff to deliver you schedule bulk freight shipping. Bulk freight and standard mail will generally go by the same route (via freight ships across the ocean), but because you're booking in bulk you can get a bit of a discount.

So Jump-1 is bulk freight and standard mail, Jump-2 is like airmail, and Jump-3 and above are like overnight shipping. With commensurately higher rates and fewer tons of freight using the higher tiers and paying the higher rates.

Originally Posted by JMason

We're also looking at having a monthly maintenance roll (made by the Chief Engineer PC) that will modify the monthly cost of maintenance. Basically how well the standard "fixes" go, determine what breaks down or doesn't that month. I'm thinking MoS x 10% (which puts the crit range at 100%), but might shift this down some.

Not bad. I'd probably keep a floor of 10% unless a crit is actually rolled. It also introduces the possibility of throwing in some negatives to those rolls if the money isn't invested one month on the following months maintenance rolls, meaning if you don't keep up on paying for the maintenance then stuff starts breaking down more often and costing more.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

Keep in mind that it's not necessarily that "people" are paying based on Jump-1, it's that the rules in Spaceships 2 are based around FTL-1. Unfortunately, while based on FTL-1 they don't even give suggestions, let alone rules, for how much FTL-2 or higher should affect shipping rates (and obviously they should, since FTL-2 or higher both costs more to have on a ship and gets the freight there faster).

Er, not really - it gives shipping rates in terms of FTL-1 travel times, for hyper and warp drives. Traveler jump drives are neither of those, but (since it takes time to cover distance with them) that's a closer fit than the rules for instant point-to-point jump drives.

But the actual point at issue here is actually quite outside that - it's how the length of the trip is calculated that's the issue. Obviously if your destination is 1 parsec (or whatever your daily distance is) away but you can't FTL in a straight line and have to go 8 parsecs to get there from here, the stardrive freight rate will reflect the latter and not the former. Traveler jump ratings change the connectivity of space, effectively redefining how far apart things are depending on what drive you're using. Which is where it gets back to what assumptions people are using for their freight payments.

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

You won't be. The closest analog today is the difference between bulk freight rates, standard mail, airmail, and overnight airmail. You can mail packages, and for maybe double the price you can airmail them. And for a premium you can overnight them. But if you have 30 pallets of stuff to deliver you schedule bulk freight shipping. Bulk freight and standard mail will generally go by the same route (via freight ships across the ocean), but because you're booking in bulk you can get a bit of a discount.

So Jump-1 is bulk freight and standard mail, Jump-2 is like airmail, and Jump-3 and above are like overnight shipping. With commensurately higher rates and fewer tons of freight using the higher tiers and paying the higher rates.

That only works if it's actually more economical to move non-urgent cargo (and SS2 assumes that's almost all cargo) by Jump-1. If Jump-2 doesn't more than double your cost per ton payload, there's a very strong possibility that that won't hold up.

[Purple Haze]

Originally Posted by fredtheobviouspseudonym

Works for can openers, too.

I used to always buy the cheapo "widget aisle of the supermarket" can openers that cost c. $2.00 but came apart in 2, 2 1/2 years or so.

One time I was in a kitchen store, had just gotten paid so I felt flush, & bought a German-made $8.00 can opener. Boy, did I feel dumb when I got it home. Waste of money.

That was 23 years ago & I'm still using that "dumb purchase." Still works fine. So with the cost of occasional washing I'm still ahead about $12 on that can opener, not counting the hassle of buying a new one every 2.5 years.

Yep. Got me one of these 24 years ago:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001CDEFK0

... and what do you know, eight bucks!

.................................................. ............................................

In every Traveller game I've ever seen: every regularly scheduled freight service is subsidized by the government, either by providing the ships at discount prices, or some mail contract at grossly inflated rates.

Player characters operating a tramp freighter are expected to be merchants, buying low and selling high, taking other's freight only as a last resort.

The problem only arises if you have a player as clever as I am. There is no reason to own and operate one's own ship, leave that to the NPC's, best just to buy and sell and use the commercial shipping lines.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Er, not really - it gives shipping rates in terms of FTL-1 travel times, for hyper and warp drives. Traveler jump drives are neither of those, but (since it takes time to cover distance with them) that's a closer fit than the rules for instant point-to-point jump drives.

Actually, Traveller "Jump" drives pretty much fit exactly in what Spaceships call Hyperdrives. They don't require Jump points (though they do have the 100 diameter limit), they move you into an other-dimension where you effectively travel FTL, and they take time to reach the destination. That's a Hyperdrive.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

Actually, Traveller "Jump" drives pretty much fit exactly in what Spaceships call Hyperdrives. They don't require Jump points (though they do have the 100 diameter limit), they move you into an other-dimension where you effectively travel FTL, and they take time to reach the destination. That's a Hyperdrive.

With the rather important difference that a Traveler jump always takes the same amount of time, rather than being proportional to the distance traveled.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

With the rather important difference that a Traveler jump always takes the same amount of time, rather than being proportional to the distance traveled.

That's background flavor, along with the 100-d limit and hydrogen fuel usage. The difference between Jump and Hyperdrive is kind arbitrary anyways; there's no reason a Hyperdrive can't require a jump point, or a Jump drive can't take some small amount of time to make the jump. As you start tacking on features the one begins to look very much like the other. The one that's really different is Warp Drive, because it keeps you in the same dimension as the rest of the universe instead of tunneling into or through some other-dimension, meaning it's much more difficult to stealth into enemy territory.